Watery, itchy eyes; sinus drainage; sneezing/coughing. I either have the worst allergies of my life, or I have a cold. If I'm having bad allergies, how did they get this bad? Is it time for me to consider moving to the desert? If I have a cold, "Friend" Ken gave it to me. I told him two weeks ago when he was coughing in my car that if he got me sick I was going to be very angry at him, and I am a man of my word. Better hope it's allergies, Ken.

UPDATE: Good news! Ken has kindly apologized for any role he may have played in my illness. Better news! After adding parosmia to my list of symptoms, I gave myself an OTC COVID test, and it came out negative. So probably just run-of-the-mill sinusitis, then. Great. I feel better already.

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Because Cam asked for it: here's CeCe's new playmate, Cydney!

Cyd is pushing five months and, as you can see, she is still a fluffy puppy with a personality to match. I'd've mentioned her sooner, but I was supposed to be keeping her a secret so that Mom didn't get too mad at her sister for helping her ex-husband get another dog. Oops.

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Today was Henry's 5th birthday. He woke up early to bark at the pest control guy, then took a nap till after noon, had some of Mom's rotisserie chicken, visited with friends, went for a walk of his chosen direction and duration (that was my present to him; I tend to get impatient with all the mailbox sniffing), and had a nice desert licking the peanut butter off my PBJ knife. When they say it's a dog's life, I assume this is what they 're talking about.

Also today, while Mom and I were out on the patio with the poodles, Henry heard Audrey inside bark once asking to join us, so he took it upon himself to walk back to the kitchen door, which is held shut with a spring, and lean on it just enough that Audrey could get out. Then he calmy went back to lounging around the yard with Louis. That's why we often call him "The Good One." He knows what he is.

Fun fact: as a puppy, he was called Shakespeare. If I'd known that when I took him in, I'd still be calling him that. It fits.

Another fact I learned about him last week (from his foster mother) was that he had been adopted out to more families than I had been led to believe before he came to me at six months. He disliked one of them so much, he walked home to his foster family the next day. That doesn't surprise me. He's a very bright and confident boy, and I'm very pleased he has chosen to stick with me for four and a half years.

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Seeing that this blog doubles as my personal diary, I feel I need to make note of the passing of Friend Michael, killed too young by cancer.

Rummaging around my archives for a pic of Mike to commemorate the sad occasion, I found this, taken (probably by James) in the parking lot of Medieval Times in Lawrenceville in June 2013.

Talking comic books and acting like big dorks. Yeah, I think pretty accurately encapsulates our three decade friendship.

Thanks for the good times, Mike.

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Today, while paying a visit to an ailing friend, I crossed paths with former bar trivia teammate Rachel, who I have known casually for many years, and Rachel said, "Whenever I see you, you don't look like you've aged. You look like you have been 35 for 15 years."

Which, I mean, she was lying. I'm bald. creaky, and look like an overfilled water balloon. Rachel was just saying something obsequiously flattering to fill the silence during an otherwise awkward social moment. Hollow and meaningless, it was manners as defense mechanism.

But now I'll take a bullet for that delightful woman.

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Over the weekend, a friend asked what I would do if I suddenly came into ten million dollars, no strings attached. My glib answer at the time was to refuse it. "What am I going to spend it on, art supplies?"

In hindsight I realize that when he asked the question, he knew something I didn't: a mutual friend had just received about the worst diagnosis a doctor can give. If there's anything money definitely can't buy, it's enough time.

As a wise general once said: "a death mark's not an easy thing to live with." But really, that's what we do every day. Life, by definition, is "the brief and futile struggle against inevitability." Not thinking about that truism is a psychological defense mechanism, a survival tactic. Skiing provides a good metaphor: look at the trees and you'll hit them, so we focus on the space in between instead. That's how we get by.

Being forced to look at the trees (memento mori as those pesky Romans say) is a good prompt to re-evaluate my current life choices. If I knew the end was near, would I be doing something differently? Are there experiences I'm missing? I have to say that even after some introspection, I can't really think of anything meaningful to me that I'm not already doing, that I've postponed, that I've sacrificed. I'm really lucky in that way, and I know it.

On the other other hand though, it's possible I'm wrong about why my friend was asking about the money. If he was actually thinking about giving me $10,000,000? Yes, please. I'll think of something to do with it. I'd hate for my obituary to say I passed up a fortune just because I aspire to nothing more than sitting with my dogs and playing video games.

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Reset the numbers! Grab a Coke! Here are quick reviews of the movies watched by me for the first time in 2026, part one of many:

1/2571. The Pirate (1948)
You just know from the moment that Gene Kelly's arrogant actor is introduced that this film is going to struggle landing its complicated love triangle, but it does all right for itself, specifically because the Nicholas Brothers show up at the climax to do a great dance routine and make you forget about the silly melodrama. Those guys could dance.

2/2572. Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (2025)
Inferior in most ways to the original, but everyone involved seems to know it'd be foolish to try to top a classic and instead trusts the audience to be satisfied enough with hanging out once again with old friends. I was. (Bonus points for surprise performance by a Beatle!) Thanks for all the laughs, Rob Reiner.

3/2573. The Bad Guys (2022)
Perhaps I've played too many role-playing games and watched too many heist movies, but I don't think a movie could be any more predictable in structure. To its credit, the target audience is children, and invention isn't really the point here so much as fun visual style and the chummy camaraderie of the voice actors.

4/2574. Too Many Husbands (1940)
What a mess! This farce was later remade as My Favorite Wife which handles the material somewhat better by swapping the genders, prolonging the secret, and adding children. In fact, go watch that one. It's just better all around.

5/2575. The In-Laws (1979)
Generally speaking, I do not find Alan Arkin's trademark "comedically" exasperated film persona funny, and that held true for most of this movie as well. But the scenes in the diner and on the airfield really landed with me.

Parallel to the road? Hmm. What an odd place for a billboard.

More to come.

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121/2553. Saturday Night (2024)
Just like Unfrosted, I very much enjoyed this obviously fictionalized semi-historical story, an "inspired by true events" tale of the first Saturday Night Live episode determined to squeeze in as much of the early show's lore as it can manage. Think of it as a worthwhile celebration of the founding of an American institution.

122/2554. The Willoughbys (2020)
A Netflix suggestion I'd never heard of. It has the feel of a film adapted from a children's book, though as I learned, the source is a YA novel, not an illustrated art book. It's cute.

123/2555. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
This story has exposition, rising action, and then the animated equivalent of an escape from Cloud City. I've often defended Empire Strikes Back as having the best world-building of any Star Wars film, but maybe I've been overly kind to its ending. This film has a similar structure (with a somewhat stupider set of villains), and I found the lack of any plot resolution very, very irritating.

124/2556. The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)
A triumph of style over substance, by which I specifically mean plot and art design over characterization. The entire human race faces extinction, and all the potential victims are kept at such arm's length from the audience, it's hard to give a shit that their pocket universe is set to be pruned by a purple giant who eats babies. It's a crime that FF are presented as icons, not the endearingly dysfunctional family of charismatic, relatable people that sold bunches of comics in the 1960s.

125/2557. 'G' Men (1935)
The film that gave FBI agents their nickname is worth watching only because Jimmy Cagney (as a former gangster turned federal policeman) is always worth watching.

126/2558. Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
Friend James described this movie as "2% fight in a minivan in a forest and 98% not worth watching." I might adjust those odds slightly in the minivan's favor, but only slightly. It really is just a bunch of nostalgic fan service for preexisting Marvel stans. (And seriously, you'll never convince me that anyone has ever really liked Gambit.)

More to come.

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I got into a polite disagreement about the relative merits of Breakfast at Tiffany's with Friend Ken, who admitted he has never much enjoyed movies from the late 50s through early 70s. Breakfast at Tiffany's aside, my uncultured friend is not entirely wrong. Obviously things did start to go a bit stale as the American Studio System died a slow death, but that doesn't mean there weren't movies worth watching in the 1960s. For example:

1960: Inherit the Wind with Tracy and Kelly taking turns stealing scenes. The Apartment deserves its Oscar for its sharp script, but I still prefer to watch (and listen to) The Magnificent Seven.

1961: Judgment at Nuremberg is still topical, as evidenced by the fact they just revisited it. I'm particularly fond of Murder, She Said, a fantastic whodunnit with a great theme. Of course, I hear Breakfast at Tiffany's is also pretty good.

1962: To Kill a Mockingbird. If you don't like that, we can't be friends (although I cannot tell you how many times I've watched The Music Man and Gypsy).

1963: Lilies of the Field has Poitier at his best, but I'm a sucker for Charade (which is not a Hitchcock film; his 1963 effort is The Birds which I also like very much).

1964: The Umbrellas of Cherborg is simply brilliant (best movie of the decade?), and if you like musicals, also A Hard Day's Night. Everyone has already seen Goldfinger, right? The template for all action spy movies to come.

1965: Bunny Lake is Missing. Yes, it's a lesser Otto Preminger film, but I'll take lesser Preminger over the likes of The Sound of Music and Doctor Zhivago any day.

1966: A Man for All Seasons won Oscar for a reason, but the tide is turning from the hackneyed films of yesteryear and there are a bunch of films from '66 that have entered enduring classic status, including Batman and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

1967: Hotel. I just love it. Actually, there's a lot to love about '67. I'm especially partial to In the Heat of the Night and the original Peter Cook/Dudley Moore Bedazzled, but you could throw a dart at most movies released this year and not come out too badly.

1968: The Phantom Tollbooth, because I grew up with it and was idly thinking about Subtraction Stew just yesterday. And while this is the year of Bullitt which stands up really well as an action film, I'd recommend The Swimmer as a hidden gem.

1969: Putney Swope is well outside the envelope of what came before it, but so are so many of the films of the year. I've seen quite a few movies from '69, when the cultural turmoil of the decade really starts to creep into almost everything, and I don't enjoy most of them, including the ones you're probably thinking of. I did, however, enjoy If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium and Z.

That's nothing like a complete list of worthwhile '60s movies, but the only way to find out what you'll really like is to start watching. Good luck, Ken.

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Netflix month continues!

116/2548. The Electric State (2025)
The amazing CGI visuals might actually be the film's core weakness because the shallow plot and cliched characters (and disinterested actors) just aren't strong enough to support the emotional weight inspired by the shattered remnants of a world destroyed by consumer culture. It very much feels that the creators never fully bought into the End Times Capitalism their film visualized. I must mention that the robot's Alamo, an abandoned shopping mall in the middle of what is supposed to be the Sonoran Desert, was fittingly filmed in the now-demolished North Dekalb Mall where I shopped and worked throughout the 1990s.

117/2549. The Happytime Murders (2018)
Contemporary reviews for this film weren't kind, but as a fan of buddy-cop crime movies, SNL-style humor, and Muppets, I was fully on board. Comedy is always very subjectively received, but I think it works.

118/2550. Unfrosted (2024)
Normally, I'm no fan of historical fiction, but hysterical fiction, sure. Recommended by friend Randy (who was always a Seinfeld fan), this fictional history of the creation of the Pop Tart is, I'm happy to report, a darn funny movie, especially if you are already familiar with the history of the era. And what a cast!

119/2551. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)
This one put me to sleep. Not that it's bad, but I felt it was a little slow to develop in obvious directions. I certainly enjoyed the original shorts, but none of the longer films has held my attention long. Maybe I've seen all the Wallace & Gromit I need to see.

120/2552. Fixed (2025)
Okay, full disclosure: I've never been as admiring of Genndy Tartakovsky's animation as many of my art school peers. I was encouraged by the cast, but this is like a dumber, less self-aware or artistically engaging Fritz the Cat. I did not finish it and would encourage no one else to start it.

More to come.

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